


the opposite of falling

by rainny_days



Category: Dimension 20 (Web Series)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/F, Fluff, Introspection, Pillow Talk, Reincarnation, Tattoos, Tenderness, ayda loves the bad kids!!, ayda would burn the world for fig, fig trying very hard to get to know someone without telling them she's trying to get to know them, of a kind - Freeform, she's friends with all of them, talk of, they love each other and they love their friends, they're both just very in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-27
Updated: 2020-02-27
Packaged: 2021-02-28 07:08:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22930000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainny_days/pseuds/rainny_days
Summary: Ayda, Fig, and tattoos(aka: the mortifying experience of trying to know someone)
Relationships: Ayda Aguefort/Figueroth Faeth
Comments: 6
Kudos: 112





	the opposite of falling

**Author's Note:**

> hey, hey??? these two are gonna make me feral
> 
> title from the lynburn legacy: 
> 
> “I'd make a joke about falling for you," she said. "But that's cheesy and terrible, and I've decided I don't believe in falling. I believe in something else."
> 
> "What's that?" asked Jared.
> 
> "The opposite of falling," Kami said, after a long time. "I did not fall. I climbed, to a place high enough that I could see clearly. Once I saw, I was certain.”

‘You ever get any for fun?’ Fig asks Ayda one night, finger tracing gently over one of the runes on Ayda’s shoulder. 

Ayda blinks at her twice in rapid succession. ‘No,’ she says. ‘Before I met all of you, and we became friends-’ there’s a quick pause, as if she still has to confirm the fact of her friendship with the Bad Kids, even after all this time. ‘I mostly did research ‘for fun’. These tattoos are all for research, so I suppose in that sense, it was for fun, although I do not believe that it was in the spirit of what you intended. I was inspired by Garthy.’ she hesitates, a flicker of uncertainty that you wouldn’t catch until you were looking for it - and Fig was always looking at Ayda, now - shuttering her face momentarily. ‘Should I? Have a tattoo for fun. Is that normal.’

Fig hums thoughtfully, furrowing her brows. ‘I don’t…necessarily think that it’s normal, or required,’ she says. ‘It’s just that- you spent your life - lives - on the Leviathan, and tattoos seem to be like, a pretty regular thing there? I mean, that’s where all of _us_ got our tattoos, and none of _those_ were for research or magic or anything.’ she pauses. ‘I guess you can say Riz’s is, but I don’t think it counts as academia if you’re extremely high on snuff powder while you do it.’

‘That makes sense,’ Ayda nods quickly, once. ‘You all participated in the act of tattooing yourselves as a gesture of friendship and self-expression. It is strange to you that I have not expressed myself like that, although I have had more opportunities to do so.’

‘No!’ Fig’s eyes go very big and very sweet, and Ayda twitches a little under them, as if she wants to reach out and touch her face. Fig shuffles closer in their nest of blankets, silently giving her permission - silently _asking_ \- as she gently curls herself to fit Ayda’s sharp edges.

‘I don’t think you’re strange,’ Fig says, quietly. ‘or- I like it. I was just…wondering, if you did anything silly when you were a kid. I mean-’ she quirks a smile, lifts her wrists. ‘The first chance I got to get a tattoo, I got _this_ , so.’

Ayda stays quiet for a moment, contemplating. ‘You want to know more about me,’ she asks, and Fig nods a little, flushing warm at the straightforwardness of her emotions being laid bare between them. ‘I understand. I want to know about you all the time, too.’

And Fig kisses her for that, partly to stop her from saying anything else so- so _wonderful_ , and partly because she can’t help herself. Ayda’s eyes are in research-mode as she pulls away, thinking over all the things that led to Fig kissing her, considering how she could recreate the conditions in the future.

‘Yeah,’ Fig admits, quiet and awkward. ‘I- I want to know more about you, I guess. I thought- tattoos are kind of, what you want to remember, right?’

Ayda frowns. ‘You tattooed ‘pain’ onto your body. I didn’t think that was something you enjoyed. _Do_ you enjoy pain? Because I can-’

Fig squeaks a little. ‘Nope! Not channeling Kristen!’ she says, a little hysterically.

‘Why? Kristen is a lovely person.’

‘I mean, sure, but she’s also- she’s very intense about sex stuff, and that’s not necessarily the thing I want to talk about right now.’ Fig waits until Ayda falls silent before she continues. ‘My tattoos are more about- the dichotomy, I guess? The universal experience of pain and pleasure.’

Ayda silently thinks that someone like Fig, bright and funny and effortlessly brave and cool and kind, should never have to feel pain in her life. She opens her mouth to tell Fig this, but Fig is already moving on.

‘And like, Kristen’s is Tracker’s name, and Riz’s is clues, and it’s just- they’re all things that are important to us, I guess, symbolically, so I maybe thought that I could find out what was important to _you_. I mean- I knew that research was, but-’

‘You’re important to me,’ Ayda says, blunt. ‘The bad kids are important to me, as are Garthy and Ragh and Tracker and Sandralynn and Gilear.’ Fig loves her a little more for not hesitating before Sandralynn and Gilear. ‘Should I get all of your names tattooed?’

If it were anyone else, Fig would think that they were mocking her. ‘Please don’t,’ she says, snorting at the thought of everyone’s reactions if Ayda got their entire party’s names tattooed on her. ‘Like I said, it’s fine if you don’t want to- not everyone does. I was just curious,’ she hesitates. ‘Because I love you.’

Ayda smiles a little at that, the crooked, helpless smile that Fig loves more than anything in the world. ‘I love you as well,’ she says, and takes Fig’s wrist in her hand, traces a gentle finger over the dark ink over them.

She thinks about sending a message to Garthy in the morning. This feeling, this person, this moment- she wants to remember.

**Author's Note:**

> i cry more about how these kids love and support each other on [tumblr](https://tweetsongs.tumblr.com/)


End file.
